Tag: Health tips

Do you recognize the name Mark Haub? He is a professor at Kansas State University who went on a junk food diet in order to teach his students about nutrition. Well, the plan backfired, because Professor Haub managed to lose 27 pounds in two months and his “LDL, dropped 20 percent and his … HDL, increased by 20 percent. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are a form of fat, by 39 percent.” (See article on CNN)

Now, that’s pretty amazing and what I’m sure a lot of people are going to say is: “Wow! I can lose weight by eating junk food, sign me up!” And, the truth is, you can’t. It is about calorie counts. In order to lose weight, you must burn more calories than you take in. This causes your body to burn off the stores of energy (known as fat), which causes you to lose weight.

Now, according to Rush Limbaugh, he has been saying that it doesn’t matter what you eat and you don’t have to exercise. Of course, he has also said that “You don’t know what it’s like to be right as often as I am”. (You can hear this portion of his radio show here.)

Haub did lower his intake, but he kept his activity the same, which means he burned more than brought in causing the weight loss. Exercise is important. It gets your heart rate up and improves your outlook. As one fat person to another, you should try it sometime, Rush, you might like it.

Two years ago, Cheryl and I made radical changes in our eating habits – more fruits and vegetables, less red meat. In those two years, my weight ballooned up 20 pounds because I didn’t pay attention to how much I ate and I certainly wasn’t exercising.

Last year at a doctor’s appointment, I weighed more than I ever had before in my life. I might’ve weighed more than Elvis did when he died. It upset me. In Dec, I had a heart and blood pressure incident. I was dangerously close to a stroke. The doctor who admitted me said, after talking to me about my stress, if I didn’t find a new job, I would be dead in a year. The stress and extra weight on my body had finally taken its toll. Prior to the stress of that job, I had my blood pressure under control and my cholesterol numbers were right where they were supposed to be. Based on that, I could say that you can be healthy and fat. And, you probably can. I was – right up until the stressful job. Quite frankly, I think that I can either be stressed at work or fat, but I can’t be both because I won’t survive.

So, once I received the okay from my doctor that I could begin exercising, I did. Since last October, I have lost twenty pounds. I did this by both diet and exercise.